The slump must go on

Not sure what y'all read, but from where I sit the economic slump is not going to end, not soon, at least here in the West. Consumer spending has been greater than income growth for a year now, and as we know that process cannot continue for long. Furthermore, the artifical activity created by the stimulus will begin to subside as those funds dry up. They were not large enough to "bridge the gulf", but then, maybe they could never have been: the boomers retirement, old people's low spending habits, vaporized savings, low export activity, all point to low spending and low income.

I assume you professional (and ethical) traders are in some kind of defensive posture, with some speculation going on abroad, and perhaps a bet or two on a black swan of technological innovation?

Probably more than half the jobs which were lost in the manufacturing sector are never coming back, due to outsourcing and robotics, I agree the future looks bleak.

I added a bunch of swing shorts yesterday but they were pretty much at the lows of the day yesterday so they are up a bit but not much, time will tell but i think next week we are going to have another leg down. We bounced off 1100 which seems to be a pretty good resistance area for the time being anyways. Im hoping we get through 1050 early next week and then test the 1030 bottom of this leg down, but i am keeping a tight leash on my swing trade stuff for now and just playing the ranges.

Quote from Ricter:

Not sure what y'all read, but from where I sit the economic slump is not going to end, not soon, at least here in the West. Consumer spending has been greater than income growth for a year now, and as we know that process cannot continue for long. Furthermore, the artifical activity created by the stimulus will begin to subside as those funds dry up. They were not large enough to "bridge the gulf", but then, maybe they could never have been: the boomers retirement, old people's low spending habits, vaporized savings, low export activity, all point to low spending and low income.

I assume you professional (and ethical) traders are in some kind of defensive posture, with some speculation going on abroad, and perhaps a bet or two on a black swan of technological innovation?

There is really no catalyst for a typical (4-6%+ GDP) recovery from this recession that I can see. In a normal recession, you have some of the over capacity wiped out. Which leads to sharp growth as we recover. That's not happening now because everyone (Republican & Democrat) views any economic slowdown as "bad". Their polocies prevent what's needed. We could have taken a lot of pain for a short while. But now, we have to endure some pain for a very long time.

Going forward, I think there may be silver lining in the Cap & Trade legislation. If we're smart, there will be some mechanism to place tarrifs on goods manufactured in countries that don't have a similar C&T program (read: Chindia). Maybe some of those manufacturing jobs will come back here.

Yes ric, the obvious solution is to cease using currency, and replace it with a system where labor is the unit of value. If we combine that measure with a completely regulated designer economy where all values are determined by whatever the government thinks things are worth, instead of what a market determines they are worth that will be even better. And finally, if we could the the palestenians some more rockets so that they could kill more Jews, so that we could "feel better that they are not around", things would be perfect!

Quote from Ricter:

Not sure what y'all read, but from where I sit the economic slump is not going to end, not soon, at least here in the West. Consumer spending has been greater than income growth for a year now, and as we know that process cannot continue for long. Furthermore, the artifical activity created by the stimulus will begin to subside as those funds dry up. They were not large enough to "bridge the gulf", but then, maybe they could never have been: the boomers retirement, old people's low spending habits, vaporized savings, low export activity, all point to low spending and low income.

I assume you professional (and ethical) traders are in some kind of defensive posture, with some speculation going on abroad, and perhaps a bet or two on a black swan of technological innovation?

Going forward, I think there may be silver lining in the Cap & Trade legislation. If we're smart, there will be some mechanism to place tarrifs on goods manufactured in countries that don't have a similar C&T program (read: Chindia). Maybe some of those manufacturing jobs will come back here.

More...

Obviously you sill believe in the tooth fairy.

If we slap tariffs on anyone and attempt to shrug it off and use C&T as an excuse they will correctly just point out we arbitrarily and unilaterally just decided to start a tariff war.

The last time we did that things didn't work out too well.

But hey some people came out of the Great depression smelling like roses.

As concerns over unemployment and business conditions loom, U.S. consumer confidence has deteriorated , according to the Conference Board. A survey, released on July 27, showed that the group's consumers confidence index, which had declined sharply in June, retreated further this month. The index fell to 50.4 points from 54.3 last month, based on a survey of 5,000 households. Most economists had expected the index to fall to 51.0 points in July.

"Consumer confidence faded further in July as consumers continue to grow increasingly more pessimistic about the short-term outlook," said Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board's consumer research center. "Concerns about business conditions and the labor market are casting a dark cloud over consumers that is not likely to lift until the job market improves," Franco said.

The economy emerged from recession in the middle of last year but growth has slowed down with the unemployment rate running at a high 9.5%. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke warned the outlook for the U.S. economy was "unusually uncertain" on July 21, saying the central bank could step in if the recovery fails."

There is no such thing as a "jobless recovery". If it's jobless, it's not a recovery.